On Sunday I was listening to the 'hourly news summary' on NPR news and the issue of gender identity that was being reported caught my attention. It wasn't the issue of gender identity by itself that caught my attention--it was the issue that was coupled with young children and their struggle to find their identity.
I couldn't find the actual transcript of the report, but here is a similar report if you'd like to check it out: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90247842
The children (as young as 2) are going through "transitioning" from one gender to another. The report I listened to focused on an 11 year old girl who was taking hormone pills to help her grow into a man. Every day she wakes up feeling more like a man and she is very happy about this. Her parents, in full support of this transition, defend negative comments by friends and strangers saying with the response: "When did you know you were a boy or a girl? You were probably very young, like two or three, but you didn't notice this because it just so happened that your gender and sex matched."
I've listened to numerous replies by NPR listeners, many of them critical on the issue, pointing to different problems that this topic faces. What do you think is the problem? Is it the parents fault to not recognize that a child's curiosity in cross-gender toys are normal and that "tomboy" is just a stage in which many females go through? Perhaps parents shouldn't dichotomize pink and blue and trucks and dolls as girl and boy things. Since when has liking pink meant girly and who says so? Is gender identity just another label we give things like "jam" and "peanut butter"? Should we blame the parents, children, or society or do you think there is no one to blame--that this is a natural part of development?
On Sunday I was listening to the 'hourly news summary' on NPR news and the issue of gender identity that was being reported caught my attention. It wasn't the issue of gender identity by itself that caught my attention--it was the issue that was coupled with young children and their struggle to find their identity.
I couldn't find the actual transcript of the report, but here is a similar report if you'd like to check it out: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90247842
The children (as young as 2) are going through "transitioning" from one gender to another. The report I listened to focused on an 11 year old girl who was taking hormone pills to help her grow into a man. Every day she wakes up feeling more like a man and she is very happy about this. Her parents, in full support of this transition, defend negative comments by friends and strangers saying with the response: "When did you know you were a boy or a girl? You were probably very young, like two or three, but you didn't notice this because it just so happened that your gender and sex matched."
I've listened to numerous replies by NPR listeners, many of them critical on the issue, pointing to different problems that this topic faces. What do you think is the problem? Is it the parents fault to not recognize that a child's curiosity in cross-gender toys are normal and that "tomboy" is just a stage in which many females go through? Perhaps parents shouldn't dichotomize pink and blue and trucks and dolls as girl and boy things. Since when has liking pink meant girly and who says so? Is gender identity just another label we give things like "jam" and "peanut butter"? Should we blame the parents, children, or society or do you think there is no one to blame--that this is a natural part of development?
On Sunday I was listening to the 'hourly news summary' on NPR news and the issue of gender identity that was being reported caught my attention. It wasn't the issue of gender identity by itself that caught my attention--it was the issue that was coupled with young children and their struggle to find their identity.
I couldn't find the actual transcript of the report, but here is a similar report if you'd like to check it out: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90247842
The children (as young as 2) are going through "transitioning" from one gender to another. The report I listened to focused on an 11 year old girl who was taking hormone pills to help her grow into a man. Every day she wakes up feeling more like a man and she is very happy about this. Her parents, in full support of this transition, defend negative comments by friends and strangers saying with the response: "When did you know you were a boy or a girl? You were probably very young, like two or three, but you didn't notice this because it just so happened that your gender and sex matched."
I've listened to numerous replies by NPR listeners, many of them critical on the issue, pointing to different problems that this topic faces. What do you think is the problem? Is it the parents fault to not recognize that a child's curiosity in cross-gender toys are normal and that "tomboy" is just a stage in which many females go through? Perhaps parents shouldn't dichotomize pink and blue and trucks and dolls as girl and boy things. Since when has liking pink meant girly and who says so? Is gender identity just another label we give things like "jam" and "peanut butter"? Should we blame the parents, children, or society or do you think there is no one to blame--that this is a natural part of development?
